Saturday, 18 July 2015
Music in the Gardens Tour, Long Beach Peninsula
a benefit for the Water Music Festival and music programs in local schools.
ticket tour map
Garden 4: High Tide Hilton
The High Tide Hilton lives up to its name. The resort-themed compound features a home and guest cottage, and a garden filled with fun regional art on exterior walls and in planting beds, along with driftwood gates and trellises and manicured lawns. The amenities include an enclosed outdoor shower, a greenhouse, and a magazine-worthy outdoor kitchen, the Surf Lounge, complete with stainless appliances.
Just outside the gate, we met Melissa and Dave (Sea Star Landscaping) about to enter the garden.
Dave and Melissa
oar gate, photo by Kathleen Shaw
Allan’s photo
The Hight Tide Hilton is half a block east of our longtime gardening job, Klipsan Beach Cottages. The nest can be seen from the highway.
photo by Allan Fritz
pre-tour photo by Bob Duke
Crafted by the previous owners of the property, this sturdy nest has been up there for years.
Allan’s photo
walk to the outdoor kitchen
Garden Tour Nancy and I did not manage to get a pre-tour of this garden because on that day, the owners had been on a camping trip. When we peered wistfully through the gate, I noticed a sign hereabouts with some sort of Survivor reference (something about the walk to tribal council). I enjoyed that sign but forgot to look for it on tour day.
by the path to the Surf Lounge
Surf Lounge outdoor kitchen
view south from the Surf Lounge
The landscape is all about amenities and easy maintenance. I could not help but envision it filled with a high maintenance garden of exotic and tropical feeling plants like a jungly castaway island.
If I lived here, I’d have most of my meals in that kitchen.
Here’s the castaway’s shipwrecked boat.
Allan’s photo
photo by Bob Duke
Allan’s photo
Seattle duo The Winterlings were the musicians for High Tide Hilton.
I was smitten with The Winterlings just from their own description of their music: “With songs as vivid as feature films, Seattle Alt-Folk duo The Winterlings take listeners on an unexpected journey through flooded barns and cedar forests, chemistry labs and ferries crossing Puget Sound.”
The Winterlings
I was as smitten by their performance as by their description, and I got tears in my eyes when they sang Long May You Live. While I had more four more gardens to see and couldn’t linger, I resolved to see their show at Waikiki Beach (at Cape Disappointment in Ilwaco, not Hawaii) on August 22. Meanwhile, I had to move on.
the main house: Surf Lodge
photo by Kathleen Shaw
photo by Kathleen Shaw
photo by Kathleen Shaw
Allan’s photo
private path to north side of main house
photo by Bob Duke; there may be two guest accomodations (one at the back of the garage?)
the guest cabin; I wish I’d thought to peer in the window.
looking back to the Surf Lodge
looking east from the deck in front of the cabin toward the side door of the garage (another guest room?)
water feature
South end of garage: a lean-to greenhouse
in the greenhouse
Allan’s photo
behind the guest cabin: a fully enclosed outdoor shower
outdoor shower room
guest cabin, back of garage (left), greenhouse door (left); outdoor shower is behind guest cabin
I liked how the buildings were joined by boardwalks.
Back we go to the Surf Lodge.
Melissa and Dave talk with the owner outside the Surf Lodge
looking east from the Surf Lodge across the driveway
looking east from the Surf Lodge across the driveway
photo by Kathleen Shaw
The resident dog was happy about all the company. (Allan’s photo)
Dax (Allan’s photo)
We parted ways with Dave and Melissa, who had started from their home near Oysterville so were doing the gardens in a different order. (Our Kathleen was at this garden at a completely different time of day.)
Regular readers of this blog can readily guess that this garden was not “plant-y” enough to be in the running for my favourite of this tour, but I sure did love the boardwalks, the guest cottage and outdoor shower, and the fantasy castaway island feeling of the place and I’d love (be able to afford) to incorporate some of that into my own plant-y garden.
Leave a Reply